A Day Late, A Buck Short
by Abagail Snow
Summary: Katniss Everdeen thought she had her life figured out. Until at 26, she found herself living in her childhood home. (Modern Day/AU)


_Written for **promptsinpanem** on tumblr._

* * *

"You don't want to marry me, do you?"

It was a question she couldn't answer. She and Gale had been together for years. It was the natural progression in the scheme of things. And perhaps, she had grown too comfortable in their routine to recognize that she wasn't alone in the unhappiness she felt.

It had always been her decision, it seemed. To be together. To stay together. The questions always lingered on her shoulders, waiting for her approval. She stopped thinking he had an opinion on anything at all. Until now.

Katniss twisted the loose ring around her finger. The gold was slightly tarnished - a family heirloom, but the small diamond never failed to shimmer. "I do," she said, but it came out too forceful, in the type of tone that made it sound like she was trying to convince herself.

"I don't think I can," he said.

Already, Katniss could feel her world shattering around her. It wasn't sadness that she felt, which was probably an awful thing to think. The signs had already been there. An ominous scar that had stretched like branches into a web they could no longer avoid. This was inevitable, she realized, but it wasn't convenient.

She hadn't exactly followed Gale across the country, but he was a factor. When high school had ended, she needed to get away - far away. Gale had settled in nicely at Arizona State, and had insisted that she would too, so that's where she went.

They were completely platonic those years that they were in school together. It wasn't until he graduated from state that the idea of them as a couple ever came up. It seemed like the natural progression. They were best friends since childhood. He was her most trusted confidant. These types of relationships always turned into something more. She knew that she was supposed to feel more for him. But she didn't.

She slipped the diamond ring from her finger and set it on the table.

* * *

Katniss lifted the lid of her suitcase and let it drop with a silent thud. The shirts that were once neatly folded and tucked away were now wrinkled and worn, some discarded in a growing pile beside her bed. She'd have to do laundry soon, but then what? Would she fill the empty dresser drawers that hadn't seen a new addition since her senior year of high school? Or would she pack them back into her suitcase, as if her current situation weren't threatening with permanence?

Tying her bed tousled hair into a bun on top of her head, she pushed away these thoughts for another day.

The coffee pot in the kitchen was cold with yesterday's stale brew, but she still filled a mug, nuking it in the microwave before dousing the taste with milk and a heaping spoonful of sugar. Her mother worked nights at the hospital, and the heavy curtains on the windows in her apartment were always drawn in a never ending night.

Katniss passed her mother's discarded keys and purse on the counter and leaned over the sink to draw back the window shade, letting in a blinding stream of late morning light. She flinched and welcomed back the darkness.

On the fridge there was a new note on the door, tacked by a Arizona shaped magnet with a coyote in the corner.

/Call Haymitch about job/ it said in her mother's loopy script above a phone number on the back of a takeout slip.

Katniss rolled her eyes and crumpled up the sheet. She didn't need a job - not here anyway. Moving back home was meant to be temporary. Enough time for her to get back on her feet and then she'd be gone again.

Her eyes drifted back to the magnet. Arizona was out of the question, but staying here was too. Not many people saw themselves moving back in with their parent at 26. She'd had her life worked out. A job, a house, a fiance. Everything she was supposed to do to become a responsible adult.

But after she and Gale had ended things, she realized how fragile the life she had built actually was. Living on her own was expensive, and the job she had already disliked became insufferable once she had to depend solely on its income. Getting laid off was almost a blessing, until she realized there wasn't another opportunity waiting in the wings. With her credit cards maxed out she had to do the one thing she hated most. Ask for help.

With a contrite sigh, she flattened the wrinkles from the sheet and picked up the phone.

* * *

Haymitch Abernathy managed a liquor store in a shopping center next to the Giant Eagle. Most of the shops were vacant on this strip except for a card shop, a Papa John's, and Mellark's bakery.

Katniss eyed the bakeshop wearily as she crossed the parking lot, grateful that the days when the youngest Mellark would be working the weekend shift were long behind her. Someone was painting tulips on the display window beneath bright letters announcing the month's special.

It was late March and the last remnants of winter still clung to the corners of the lot in dirty clumps of ice. The air held a bitter bite - too cold to be without a jacket, yet the kid only worked in a thin, loose fitting tee shirt. He painted cartoon flowers with such intensity that she almost found it endearing.

There was something familiar about the slant of his shoulders and his light cropped hair. Probably a Mellark cousin. They all seemed to look alike.

It wasn't until she'd reached the sidewalk that she realized it was Peeta standing before her. He began to turn at the sound of her boots and she panicked, rushing towards the liquor store door. It gave easily with a loud chiming of bells, and she was safely inside within a single short breath.

She had known Peeta since elementary school, but during their school days they had only exchanged a handful of words at most. Because of the district lines, he'd gone to a different middle school than her - the rich one, and by the time the two middle schools merged back into a single high school, they had already settled into their own separate groups of friends.

Still, there was something about the way she had caught him staring at her a few times in class that made her think that something might happen between them. And something had - sort of, at a party at Madge's house the end of senior year. She couldn't recall all the details, only that she had somehow been roped into a game of spin the bottle, and that her first spin had landed on him.

To this day, heat still rose to her cheeks every time she thought about it. It had been her first kiss.

"What's up with you?"

Katniss startled when she realized she wasn't alone. Haymitch Abernathy was sitting behind the checkout with his feet propped on the counter, and his unkempt black hair knotted in a ponytail at the base of his neck.

"I'm here about the job - Katniss Everdeen? We spoke on the phone."

He stared at her bleary eyed for a long moment. "Right. Lynn's kid," he finally said.

"Right," she nodded shortly, and shifted the strap of her purse awkwardly on her shoulder. "It's only temporary though. Nothing permanent."

"You're stocking shelves, sweetheart, not curing cancer," he said with a chuckle that followed made her narrow her eyes to slits. "It won't be the end of the world if I need to replace you. It's only a favor anyway, this arrangement."

"Really? When you get your stomach pumped at the hospital so often, is the fifth one free?"

Haymitch was the town drunk - everyone knew it. He'd been in a car accident in high school that had killed his girlfriend at the time. It was never proven that he was drunk behind the wheel, but everyone assumed. Instead of cleaning his life up after that, he seemed content in drowning in his misery. Katniss's mother had an infinite supply of crazy ER stories with Haymitch as the star.

"Watch yourself, sweetheart," he said coldly. "We've got a new shipment in back. Get to stocking."

* * *

"Is White Zinfandel classy enough for a house warming present?" Madge asked, picking a pink bottle off the shelf to examine the label. "Because I'm not sure if this is one of those courtesy, 'bring us wine so we have something to serve at Thanksgiving' or a 'bring us wine because we will not be providing any other booze tonight and it's every man for themselves' types of things, because this is the only stuff I think I'd drink."

"Then get that," Katniss said.

"It's only six dollars."

"So?"

Madge brought the bottle to the register and set it down for Katniss to scan.

"Maybe I'll bring a dessert too then," she said with a contemplative sigh. "Are you going?"

"Going to what?" Katniss said. The register beeped when she flashed the bar code with her scanner.

"Delly's housewarming party," she said. "Her and Thom bought a house, put 20% down and everything. Isn't that crazy?"

A homeowner at 26 wasn't unheard of, but houses in that neighborhood ran $500k.

"Wow," Katniss said, trying not to sound too impressed.

"You should come," Madge said. "I'm sure Delly won't mind, you can be my plus one."

Katniss pulled a thin paper bag from beneath the register and slipped the bottle inside. "Rick doesn't want to go?"

"He's insistent on baby sitting for the night and letting me have a girl's night out, ie he wants to play whatever game just came out on XBOX live with his friends, while the baby watches with an unplugged controller in his lap."

Katniss kept on forgetting that Madge had a kid. Her husband was several years older than her, so it made sense to grow up a little faster, but still, Katniss could barely take care of herself, let alone a child.

"I don't think I should," Katniss said, handing Madge her purchase. "I barely even knew her. It'll be weird."

"Oh come on, this is Delly Cartwright! In her rose hued memories of high school, you guys were best friends."

Katniss kept her eyes on the register buttons. She wondered if Peeta would be there. He probably would. She hadn't seen him since her first day on the job, but the mural on the storefront window was growing more elaborate by the day, meaning he was still in town.

"I could chip in for a dessert," Katniss finally said after a heavy sigh. "Are you going to Mellark's for it?"

Madge's eyes lit up. "I didn't even think of that. I was just going to get a cookie platter from Giant Eagle. That's a much better idea." She grimaced. "Although pointless, since Peeta probably already cleaned the racks of the good stuff so everyone will love him most. You know him," she said and rolled her eyes.

Katniss felt her cheeks tinge pink. Was she really getting embarrassed over a high school crush? She cleared her throat and threw in a casual, "Yeah." She felt the question bubbling in the back of her throat, the anxiety causing her heel to bounce against the rung of her chair. "He still lives here?" she asked when she couldn't take it anymore.

"Kind of, I guess. He's been back for a few months," she leaned over the counter to lower her voice even though they were the only two in the shop. "Messy divorce."

She felt her heart stop. Peeta was married?

"Should I bring a veggie tray instead," Madge began to muse, oblivious to Katniss's current dilemma. "I'm not ever sure if it's a food thing. Maybe I'm supposed to get her a useless trinket from Pier One. You wouldn't happen to have a Bed Bath and Beyond coupon in your junk mail?" she said, eying the growing pile of mail peeking out from under the counter.

"Have at it," Katniss said vacantly, her mind too busy casting Peeta's bride.

* * *

Katniss kept her glass poised against her lips as her eyes drifted across the party. Every man in the room was wearing coordinating sweaters over their oxford shirts and khaki pants, and the women all seemed to be aiming for either business casual or cocktail party. Katniss's jeans were dark enough to pass for black pants, and her sweater was formal enough, but she still felt under dressed. Like she was a kid playing grown up in a room full of adults.

She recognized too many people too. She graduated high school with them.

"Katniss, I'm so excited you came!" Delly said, pulling her into what may have been their fifth hug that night. "Most of us thought we'd never see you again, to be honest."

Katniss tried to smile pleasantly, but she could tell by the tightness in her cheeks that she didn't quite pull it off.

"You never came home for breaks, and I could never track you down for the alumni lists. Do you even have a facebook?"

She shrugged. She might have, but all the settings made it hard to find her. Not that she checked it much.

Delly's smile brightened - if that were possible - when she caught sight of something over Katniss's shoulder. She reached for Katniss's wrist to keep her from leaving then began waving frantically. "Peeta, come here," she shouted. "Peeta, look who's here," she said, and Katniss could feel the warmth of him passing behind her to join their conversation. "It's Katniss Everdeen, can you believe it?"

It took a moment for recognition to flash across her features, and for some reason disappointment swelled in her stomach in response. He didn't even remember her.

"Hey," he said, shifting awkwardly like he was about to give her a hug, but opted to brush his hand up her arm instead.

"Catch up, catch up!" Delly said, ushering him into the space where she was standing. "You were both living out west, you probably have a lot to talk about." And then with one last pleased grin, she was off to another conversation.

Peeta lifted his eyebrows and took a breath as if he were going to speak, but took a swig from his beer bottle instead. "Out west, really?" he said after a stretch of silence. "You went to school out there, right?"

Her voice was caught somewhere in her throat. "ASU. You?"

"I was in Denver for a while."

"Oh. That's not too far," she said.

He chuckled. "Yeah, a thousand miles, it's a wonder we never ran into each other."

She had to laugh at that. "What brought you to Denver?"

"I had opened a bakery."

"Ca-ching."

He flinched, bowing his head to run his hand through his hair. "Tell me about it."

"Why would you leave?"

His smile tightened and he hesitated for a moment. "The best advice I can give you is: Don't go into business with your spouse unless you're really, really, really sure. I couldn't buy her out during the settlement, and lawyers get pretty expensive pretty fast."

"So she got to keep it? That doesn't seem fair," Katniss said.

"Neither of us did," he said and took another drink. "She did get the house though, which brings me here."

"Ouch." She felt more at ease now and leaned her shoulder against the wall beside his. "I'm sorry."

When he lifted his head to meet her gaze, his face was closer than she had anticipated, making her knees tremble. She steeled her nerves, gulping her wine until the glass was empty.

"It's okay," he said. "Probably for the best, you know?"

She found herself nodding.

"Besides," he added. "What's more attractive than a guy approaching 30 living in his parent's basement?"

"Don't ask me. If you break down my current situation I'm either living with my mother or a crazy cat lady," she said. She couldn't believe that ratty old Buttercup was still alive, but he was, and he still hated her as much as he did on the day Prim found him.

"What about you? This is probably the last place anyone would expect to see you."

"Panem?" she said, arching an eyebrow.

His smile widened. "No, Delly's living room for a house warming party. Never seemed like your scene."

"Had to get over those demons eventually," she said. She meant for the statement to be harmless, but she saw his expression immediately soften.

"I'm sorry about your sister," he said.

She hid her face behind the lip of her glass. "That was a long time ago," she said. "It had nothing to do with it. Me coming back," she added, trying to lighten the mood again. "I, um, ended things with my boyfriend - well fiance, I guess. Less paperwork than you, especially since everything was in his name."

He nodded slowly. "Gale, right?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, startled that he knew.

"I mean I figured. Since you followed him to school and all. I always thought you were together."

"We weren't," she said defensively.

"I'm sorry, that was such a weird thing to say to someone."

She looked away. "It's fine."

"No, really," he said. He lifted his hand like he might touch her again, but balled his fingers into a fist instead to drop against his thigh. "I sound like a stalker or something. We barely even know each other and I'm spouting off details from eight years ago like they happened yesterday."

"That's not weird," she insisted, in fact it made her feel better after thinking about him so often this week. "We knew each other."

"You're right," he said, tapping his finger against his chin. "I do recall this one time when I sneezed, I think you said 'God bless you.' I'd never felt closer to another person after that pleasantry."

She rolled her eyes. Maybe it was the glass of wine that was making her a bit foggy - she hadn't eaten much and she drank it awfully fast. Usually she was better at filtering her thoughts, but before she could stop herself, she stated what seemed obvious to her. "We kissed."

He looked like he'd just had the wind knocked out of him, but he quickly recovered. "We did," he said carefully. "I didn't think you remembered."

"It was my first," she said with a shrug, starting to feel embarrassed again. "So it's memorable by default."

"Oh." He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing roughly in his throat. He chuckled uneasily, flashing a smile that was somehow both charming and shy. "I'm so sorry, what an awful precedence to set."

Her breath hitched, and her gaze fell to his mouth. She kept thinking about how they felt pressed against hers, and the faint bitter taste of the beer on his lips, and the way she'd felt boneless for the rest of the night after. "It still ranks pretty high, actually."

The blue in his eyes seemed to darken ten shades as they searched hers. "Do you want to get out of here?" he said.

Her entire body was trembling now, and the hand he'd placed on her hip wasn't helping. "Okay."

* * *

"I can't believe you rebounded with Peeta Mellark," Madge said, ripping the corner off her candy bar wrapper and taking a bite of her Snickers. Sunday was the day she ran errands, and she always stopped in at the liquor store to visit Katniss after she'd gone grocery shopping. "Two divorcees seeking comfort amidst their quarter life crisis by regressing to their adolescent glory days. I'm sure there are millennial aged psychologists looking to write a book about you."

Katniss scoffed. "I'm not a divorcee. And there is no regressing."

Her phone buzzed on cue with a message from Peeta. /Wanna hang out later?/ it read.

"No regressing?" Madge laughed. "He just texted you a booty call, didn't he? It's not even noon yet."

Her eyes snapped to Madge and then back to her phone. "We're making plans," she said flatly.

"I bet."

Katniss flipped her phone off and tossed it onto the counter. "I have no idea what I'm doing," she groaned, dropping her face into her hands. "I've never done this before. Gale's the only other person I've ever been with."

She never intended for it to be that way. When Prim died, she shut down for a long time. Even when she began to heal from the loss, she focused all of her attention on school. It didn't seem right to do anything else.

"And we got it all wrong," she added. She'd known him forever and things had gotten serious too fast, and ever since it ended she'd been terrified, because she didn't have a clue what the in between was. "How do you just meet someone? How does that even work? I missed that young and stupid phase, or maybe I'm just getting to it too late."

Madge sighed and scooped Katniss's phone off the table. "He works next door, right?" she said as she typed her thumbs against the screen. She handed the phone back to her. "You have twenty minutes to be young and stupid, and then I'm going home."

* * *

His ceiling had a popcorn finish and the wood paneling was hidden by a thick coat of moss colored paint. There were a few canvases hanging on the wall now that weren't there the day before, but before she could get a good look at them, her heavy lids slipped shut and her back arched from the mattress.

Her fingers were slipping from where they clung to his short hair, and her nails scraped along his scalp in a desperate attempt to keep a hold of him. His tongue was slick against her, and when he flicked it against her clit, her thighs snapped together, trapping his face between her legs.

"Relax," he murmured into her hip. He urged her knees apart, slipping one leg over his shoulder and pinning the other beneath his body before his tongue returned to her throbbing center. "Better?" he said, the hum of his voice sending another tremor of pleasure through her.

"Yes," she said too eagerly. This spurred him on and he applied more pressure against the sensitive bundle of nerves with the flat of his tongue. "Yes," she nearly shouted this time.

"Shh," he admonished, then he began to laugh. "Shh," he repeated in a hushed voice. "You'll wake up my parents."

She was laughing now too. She draped her arm across her face to cover her eyes. This was so embarrassing. "This isn't going to work."

He stretched across the mattress to lay beside her, pulling a blanket up with him. "Your mom works nights, right? Maybe we should start going to your place."

"I have a twin bed," she said, and they both began to laugh again.

"I think my parents are going to be out of town next weekend," he said.

"Won't you be too busy hosting a righteous kegger?"

He groaned again. "I want to get an apartment, but then I'll have to sign a lease, and then I'll be stuck here," he said. That's how she felt too. She couldn't even unpack her suitcase.

He rolled onto his back to stare at the popcorn ceiling. She liked how broad his chest was because when she curled against him, he was easy to use as a pillow.

"This is nice though," he said, echoing her own thoughts. "I like this."

She was starting to feel foggy, and knew she was drifting towards sleep. "I should head home."

He tightened his arm around her waist. "Stay."

"Don't you get up at five in the morning? Should I have your mother let me out?"

"Nah, I'm closing tomorrow." He hitched her leg across his waist so that she was straddling his hips. His hands ran up her sides, pausing to cup her bare breasts. "I'll make you breakfast."

She was wide awake again. She leaned forward to kiss him, yelping when she felt his cock brush against the slick heat between her legs.

"Quiet," he reminded her.

"Mmhmm," she hummed, sinking down his length.

* * *

Katniss nursed her margarita, tracing her straw along the lip of her glass to pick up salt. Delly had been clucking on and on about how Thom's new wood working hobby was taking over her garage.

"Western Pennsylvania winter? You bet your ass I'm parking my car in there. His lathe can rot in a snow drift."

Katniss slurped up the last bits of frothy tequila until she was only sucking air through her straw. Madge and Delly had talked her into doing happy hours on Thursdays. A good ole fashion "girl's night." Sometimes there was karaoke, which although Katniss acted surly about, she secretly enjoyed.

"Ugh, I know," Madge chirped in. "They get to claim any sort of dwelling space as their 'cave' but the second your clothes drift past the halfway marker in the closet, you're the one taking up too much space. Patriarchy. When will they learn?" She picked up the pitcher to refill everyone's glass. "I'm so envious of you Katniss. You don't have to deal with the bullshit."

She flushed. "Having my mother as a roommate?" she said flatly.

Their waiter appeared and placed a shot in front of Katniss. "Compliments of the guy over there," he said.

Katniss ducked her face behind her hand, feeling mortified.

"He's kind of cute," Madge offered, checking over her shoulder to appraise him.

He was. He looked young though, maybe 21 - probably only 19 with a good enough fake. She forced herself to smile, but before she could find the gentlest way out of the situation, Delly was waving the drink away.

"Hello! Sorry!" she shouted across the bar at the guy with his friends. "She already has a boyfriend."

The guy took it easily enough, but now Katniss felt worse. Her eyes locked with Madge who had lifted a questioning eyebrow. Katniss shook her head, perplexed.

"Boyfriend, huh?" Madge teased.

"Peeta?" Delly stated obviously.

"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Madge said.

"He's crazy about you," Delly said, taking Katniss's hand to squeeze it. "He's always been so crazy about you. It's so exciting to see you two get your chance. We should have a dinner thing - all six of us. It'll be fun!"

Blood began to rush to Katniss's ears, drowning out the sound of Delly's voice.

He's crazy about you.

* * *

"Why'd you get divorced?"

Peeta tapped his playing piece against each square on the board until he counted out the spaces for his turn. He drew a card from the deck and grimaced. "This isn't much fun. Monopoly really is a terrible game," he said, counting out a few paper bills and handing them to her.

She couldn't tell if he was avoiding the question or if he hadn't heard. "What happened? Did she cheat on you?"

He lifted his eyebrows and looked slightly perplexed. "No."

She felt something heavy in the pit of her stomach. She pinched one of the little red houses between her fingers, rolling it against the pad of her thumb before she dropped it on the board. She looked at him, and then away.

"Did you cheat on her?"

"What? No!" he sounded exasperated, but he laughed it off easy enough. "It isn't always so melodramatic."

"I just figured..."

He shuffled his remaining money and tucked it beneath the edge of the board. "Why didn't you marry Gale?"

"We weren't happy," she said with a shrug.

"Neither were we."

Katniss was done playing the game. She pulled herself onto the couch and hugged her knees to her chest. She'd spent so much time in this basement now, it was easy to make herself at home. They'd been sleeping together for three months now.

"What's wrong with us?" she said. "How'd we fuck it up so bad?" He sat beside her. "You work hard, you do what you're told, and everything's supposed to work out. Then what are we doing here?"

"We settled," he said. That sounded like a good way to put it. He dropped his arm around her shoulders and sighed. "I remember when I was a kid, I thought that when I found 'the one' I'd just know. And there was this girl - the first time I saw her I was five years old, and she was it for me. That's what love was."

"What happened to her?"

He looked at her knowingly. "I had these feelings, but I never knew what to do with them. I figured there were more people out there for me like that and that I'd find them too. But nobody held a candle to her, and I realized that I must have built up this fantasy that wasn't real. So I had to figure it out all over again, but it was never the same."

Katniss felt the same way after her sister died. That a part of her had died too, and she'd never get that back. She'd been living in neutral since then.

"I think it's important," he continued. "Knowing when there's a difference. Knowing when it's right. And not wasting your time on anything else."

She frowned. "What are we doing then?"

"I don't know," he said. "I want to find out though."

She nodded. "Me too."

* * *

Katniss took the pile of folded laundry and tucked it into the dresser drawer. It didn't quite fit so she spread a few shirts to another stack, pausing when she felt something rigid beneath the fabric. She dug deeper to uncover a small felt box.

A ring.

She and Peeta had been together for over a year now, and they'd shared this apartment for eight months. Marriage was only a conversation they'd had in passing, but it was a direction they were heading towards. Katniss snapped the box shut. She hadn't realized that they were already there.

She padded into the living room where he was watching television. Stepping beside him, she dropped the box into his lap.

The color drained from his face as understanding filled it. "I can explain," he said quickly.

She cut him off. "I want to," she said.

"You want to marry me?" he said with wide eyes.

She dropped to her knees before him to kiss him through her smile. "I do. I really do."

* * *

_Find me on tumblr (**absnow**)_


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